garded somewhat in the light of
Ingigerd's guardian, assented unwillingly.

"You see, Miss Eva," he said, "I am really the last person in the world
to stand in the way when beautiful things are to be created. But I am
only a man, and if Ritter were to use Miss Hahlstroem as a model here,
where only one or two walls would separate us, that would mean an end to
my peace of soul." Miss Burns laughed. "You may well laugh," he said,
"but I am a convalescent, and relapses, you know, are worse than the
sickness they follow."

A week passed, in which Frederick carried on a remarkable, but not, as
yet, victorious warfare. He worked in the studio daily, and Miss Burns
became his confidante. From his own mouth she learned what she had
already observed, that he was languishing in the chains of an unhappy
passion. Without ever interfering in his spiritual struggles unless he
positively demanded it of her, she gave him advice as a good friend
and comrade.

"Every time I see Ingigerd, or go out with her, or spend any time at all
with her," he said, "I feel outraged and bored. I have firmly made up my
mind not to go back to her."--A resolution frequently broken a few hours
after it was made.

Miss Eva was so long-suffering that Frederick never felt compelled to
drop the theme of Ingigerd Hahlstroem. The girl's soul was turned inside
out and back again.

One day Ingigerd said to him:

"Take me, seduce me, do with me whatever you will, Frederick. Be strict,
be cruel with me. Lock me up. You are the only man I want to have
anything to do with me any more." Another time she said beseechingly:
"I want to be good, Frederick. Make me good."

But the very next day she again subjected her friend and protector to
unpardonably vile treatment. The fact was, she already had a following of
men, running errands for her, attending to her affairs, thinking for her,
and paying for her.

The thing that Frederick could not wean himself from was that sweet,
fair, frail, pathetic body. Yet he was determined to wean himself.

One day Ingigerd came to sit for Miss Burns for her portrait. Frederick
placed a revolving stand in front of her and also tried to model the
blonde Madonna in clay. Even Ritter had a mass of clay for modelling a
bust of her prepared on a revolving stand, and the master entered into
rivalry with his pupils. Miss Burns's purpose in arranging these sittings
was not easily fathomed. The result was, however, that the very severe